Section Mandate

It is anticipated that the LAWASIA Human Rights Section will focus activity on the following:

• 1.1    Research into human rights in particular in the Asian Pacific region.
• 1.2    Providing LAWASIA members with information on human rights.
• 1.3    Organising or assisting meetings, sessions and conferences of LAWASIA on human rights issues.
• 1.4    Proposing and/or implementing human rights intervention activities including intervention letters, organizing and researching trial and other observation missions.
• 1.5    Participation in meetings, among others, of bar associations/ law societies, international lawyers’ organizations and international organisations.
• 1.6    Establishing and administrating a LAWASIA Human Rights Award, awarded to lawyers or advocates who have made prominent achievements in human rights in the Asian Pacific region.
• 1.7    Drafting principles for consideration by Council (e.g. principles on separation of command between civil police force and military).
• 1.8    Giving consideration to further development of the draft LAWASIA Pacific Human Rights Charter.

Section Leaders

Co-Chair, Human Rights Section | LAWASIA

Professor Yasushi Higashizawa
Meijigakuin University
3-1-5 Takanawa, Minato
Tokyo, 108-0074
JAPAN

T: +81 3 5421 5501
F: +81 3 5421 5256
E: humanrights.chair@lawasia.asn.au

Professor of the Meiji Gakuin University, Faculty of Law and a Special Counsel of , the Nishi Tokyo Kyodo Law Offices (Tokyo). Attorney at law admitted in Japan, States of New York and California, USA, as well as Listed Counsel of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

He serves as a Co-Chair of the Human Rights Section of the LAWASIA as well as a Counselor to the President of the Union Internationale des Avocats (UIA). He also served, among others, as a chair of the International Human Rights Committee (IHRC) of the JFBA, a Council Member of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBA-HRI) and a ExCo. Member of the International Criminal Bar (ICB).

Co-Chair, Human Rights Section | LAWASIA

Mr Shyam Divan
Co-Chair, Human Rights Section
Senior Advocate 

9, Nizamuddin East
New Delhi 110013
INDIA 

T: +91 11 41851374 
F: +91 11 41851376 
E: humanrights.chair@lawasia.asn.au

Shyam Divan is a senior advocate who practices before the Supreme Court of India. His areas of practice cover most branches of civil litigation including banking, securities law, arbitration, administrative law and environmental law.

He appears for citizens’ groups in environmental cases and assisted the Supreme Court as amicus curiae in the Bellary case involving illegal iron ore mining in the forests of Karnataka.

Mr Divan is the co-author of Environmental Law and Policy in India (2nd Edition, 2001, Oxford) and has most recently authored a chapter on Public Interest Litigation in Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution (2016, Oxford). 
 
He has taught environmental law at the graduate and post graduate levels at the University of Mumbai and has occasionally lectured on the subject at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. 
 
Mr Divan was elected Vice President of LAWASIA in 2018.